It is Ms. Flory’s response to what she reportedly witnessed in a recent police ride-along that is itself surprising. Anyone who has ventured downtown during much of the last decade can attest to the conditions described in the article. Was Jan Flory really unaware that revelers routinely vomit and urinate in the streets and on doorsteps, break windows, and get into fights? Perhaps we can charitably say that she knew what a drunkfest the downtown had become, but was simply caught off-guard by the magnitude of the problem. But, who couldn’t have told her that?

I added enough text to complete your second paragraph. I’m happy to see this blog send traffic to the Rag, but you should give us enough here to at least begin a discussion.

So is there anything going on in the Downtoen streets late at night — fighting, pissing, vomiting, vandalizing, etc. — that could not be cured by more arresting and fining?

The effect of this would be that more people interested in these activities would end up going someplace other than Fullerton for Drunken Fight Club Night.. Good. The bars can do just fine without their business. Plenty of people who don’t want to engage in these activities — and who just want to be loud and drunk and obnoxious around other people similarly inclined — would still come, because for them it’s fun.

Accurately separating the sheep from the goats there would be good business, good government, and even profitable — which is OK so long as it’s not the desire for profit driving the response. Just don’t arrest innocent people, get them on video, and don’t beat anyone at all if you can help it and no more than absolutely necessary (if they are drunk and belligerent) if you can’t.

Is that perhaps exactly the sort of response that Flory may have in mind? Should have been done before now, sure — but the Council Majority was not ideal.

In this case, where people are acting out en masse and really deserve the arrests (or tickets if you prefer), the money would come from the fighting, pissing, vomiting vandals themselves. And as the party buses get the sense that DTF is no longer a cross between Fight Club and Vomitland, the problem should abate on its own.

But wait a minute: if you’re opposed to enforcing the laws being broken here, then what are you for? Do you want to close down bars (which also costs “where will it come from” money)? I presume that the point of such an article is not simply “neener-neener.”

“But wait a minute: if you’re opposed to enforcing the laws being broken here, then what are you for? Do you want to close down bars (which also costs “where will it come from” money)?”

Jesus, you’ll just never learn when to take your fingers away from the keyboard and put them back on the Pop Tarts or whatever. I have always reveled in your complete lack of knowledge when it came to commenting on Fullerton’s events or characters. Several years ago, the bright minds downtown convened a ‘working group’ who discovered that for all the hordes and zillions of drinks sold, downtown was costing the city around a million bucks a year. So the wise Bankhead, who never met a dollar he didn’t want to throw at police, managed to get the rest of those clods to approve four more officers specifically for patrolling downtown at an additional cost over time of God-only-knows how much. So I wonder what sort of net loss downtown is running now. Canning these joints would have been and still would be an instant windfall for the city, if not the alco-traffickers.

Greg, I don’t think fines pay for police pensions, but I haven’t done the numbers on that one.

The bars are beginning to police themselves a bit, but when they have to hire outside security firms to keep order in their own clubs, one has to wonder if they shouldn’t change their business model.

At the very least we should stop issuing new liquor licenses in the ROD. Next, the cops should pay attention to routine code violations, like open front doors after 10 pm and overly long lines outside of bars. It may not be a bad idea to charge for parking downtown either if it’s only at night. However, if it includes the new OCTA funded parking structure on Harbor, then we will be punishing transit riders and discouraging them from riding the trains and buses (unless, of course, the structure was actually built for the benefit of the bars, and not for transit riders…why is it on the opposite side of Harbor from the transit center?).

In the end, however, if bars are all obeying the laws but continue to attract miscreants, it may just be that the problem isn’t solvable. Like bears who invade campgrounds in national parks because that’s where they will find food, partiers will continue to flock to Downtown Fullerton because that’s where they will find liquor–and, more importantly, other partiers like themselves.

The most important thing to remember is that the downtown bar scene does not bring in money to the city. It costs the city money to have it there. I once had a bar owner tell me to my face that if the residents of Fullerton wanted an active downtown restaurant district we should be prepared to pay for it.

Greg Diamond

Posted August 26, 2013 at 10:35 AM

Thanks for the well-considered response, Matt.

If it’s OCTA, I presume that it’s a boondoggle, but in this case isn’t one reasonable answer that it’s across Harbor (and not far across) because that’s where it was cheap to build?

Would I be right in presuming that the proposition that Fullerton does not profit a dime from the presence of these bars is in dispute? Does the city get sales tax revenues from sales in the area? (That’s a serious question. And if there’s some sort of agreement not to collect taxes, can it come to a close?) Does it help create the economic infrastructure to keep more respectable restaurants in business? Is the presence of a vibrant (and sadly vomitous) late-night party scene seen as a plus by anyone who is considering which college to attend? From your comment, I presume that there’s some study out there somewhere; I’d need to look at it to see how they came to that conclusion.

As for codes: there’s really a code against long lines? Amazing! Who is violating that code, when lines get long? Are the bar owners supposed to go out and shoo people away? “Go to our competitors, late-arriving curs!” (Should this also apply to Farrell’s in Downtown Brea?)

So, if I understand you correctly, you’re OK with cops stepping up enforcement codes but you (or at least your apparent pal nipsey) object to them enforcing penal codes against drunken vomitous urinating vandals. This would only make sense to me if you’re concerned not with solving the problem of illegality in the streets, but in shutting down businesses. It seems to me that this is refighting an old fight — and that the first step, before “clearing out the campgrounds to keep away the bears,” would be to go after the criminal acts. Otherwise, it looks like an attempt to hobble the businesses in the area, drive them away, and give someone the chance to buy property in that area cheap. That would be bad.

Well, nipper, I suppose that if you start from the premise that she’s just a self-absorbed, happily disinterested dimwit then you are likely to reach the conclusion that she’s just a self-absorbed, happily disinterested dimwit. In fact, it doesn’t take much mental effort at all.

I don’t start from that premise. Nor an interested in the refighting of old wars to proclaim Tony Bushala was right when he was on the Planning Commission — which conveniently overlooks questions regarding the state we could have expected the downtown area the be like by now without these changes (about which you’re no doubt certain and about which your certainty is no doubt damn near worthless.) Instead, I asked some pertinent questions above about how Fullerton could, now, address these problems. Feel free to address that question when you’re tired of spewing bile. When and if, I mean.

I thought that he once mentioned being on it in the early 2000s back on FFFF, but I’m not going to look it up. He has certainly mentioned having been opposed to how Downtown Fullerton was developed into a bar scene.

Yes, I read the post. In fact, I talked to her about this about a year or so ago. My recollection is that she thought that this approach had some risks, but that the then-current status quo was a sure loser. You can’t rationally debate whether the decision made at that time was good or not without reference to the alternatives. Of course, it’s also possible that the decision was reasonable at the time but that it was later screwed up by bad management by the City Council. I don’t know — and you apparently don’t care.

I would like to note for the record how enormously ridiculous it is to offer a “yeah and pigs can fly” answer in your other comment. We know that Jordan didn’t take a sip and leave the room due to photographic evidence. We don’t have evidence of that type (and perhaps of no actual type) regarding Flory’s decision-making. Pretending that they’re comparable situations — and that disdainful snottiness is a substitute for argument — just makes you look like a dork.

David Zenger

Posted August 24, 2013 at 11:44 PM

“I thought that he once mentioned being on it in the early 2000s back on FFFF, but I’m not going to look it up.”

Of course you won’t. In other words you just made something up and now you refuse to acknowledge it. Nice. So how are you different from Cunningham, except that he gets paid to be pimped out?

Flory ran for public office not knowing what one of the biggest problems in Fullerton was? Really? Well, she’s a reliable if somewhat senile Democrat. She also was backed by, and backs a bunch of cops who have never been answerable for their criminal behavior.

Fortunately we have lots of evidence relating to Flory’s “decision making,” if you want to call it that. Matt Leslie nailed this one. Own it. This horse won’t run.

Greg Diamond

Posted August 24, 2013 at 11:52 PM

I admit that I may be wrong about what I recall — which is a fact that we in the trade call “ancillary.” Tony was either on the Commission at some point or he was trying to influence its decisions; I thought it was the former.

Do you know, to a dead certainty, whether Tony ever served on a Commission? If not, you’re making a jackass out of yourself. Actually, you are either way; you would just be a bigger jackass if you turned out to be wrong.

“Matt Leslie nailed this one”? If you say so. The problem was apparently bigger than Flory had once thought. Oh, the horror.

David Zenger

Posted August 25, 2013 at 10:58 AM

“Tony was either on the Commission at some point or he was trying to influence its decisions; I thought it was the former.

Do you know, to a dead certainty, whether Tony ever served on a Commission? If not, you’re making a jackass out of yourself. Actually, you are either way; you would just be a bigger jackass if you turned out to be wrong.”

Wow, you sure are backpedaling hard. First you positively aver a falsehood; then you say facts don’t matter if they are “ancilliary”. Then you say well maybe he wasn’t on the Planning Commission, he was just trying to influence it as if that were the same thing. Then, comically, you shift gears and ask whether Bushala ever served on “a” commission, as if that might give you some sort of excuse for making up the assertion that he was on the Fullerton Planning Commission.

And if this segue were ancillary and thus irrelevant, why did you write it in the first place?

In the future please notify your reader which “facts” of yours are ancillary and liable be harmlessly untrue, and which are genuine.

I come at it from a decade and a half’s worth of observing the cavalcade of useless fools that comprised the council, Flory among them, and feeling a complete lack of shock that she is now “surprised” by something which it is almost impossible to imagine anyone in the city, let alone some self-styled civic leader, not knowing about it.

In other words, you’re about as far from a disinterested and dispassionate observed as one can get.

The notion that one can know that there’s a problem, but still (based on personal encounter) be surprised by the extent and details of the problem, should not be a surprise to anyone. That it apparently surprises you, in the context of your comment, is ironic.

She was neither or nor seeking to be on the Council for I think it was most of a decade, so that she wasn’t keeping close tabs on the late-night bar scene should also be no surprise.

David Zenger

Posted August 24, 2013 at 11:48 PM

“…she wasn’t keeping close tabs on the late-night bar scene should also be no surprise.”

Maybe she was doing her drinking at the River.

This paragon also wasn’t keeping tabs on the murder of Kelly Thomas, either. It was all a big misunderstanding, and no, she never watched the video. Chief Danny told her all about it. He watched it 400 times.

nipsey

Posted August 25, 2013 at 1:04 AM

Ha, you’re so cute when you tie yourself into knots trying to defend the indefensible re: anyone you’ve expressed support for – say re: Silva, before she had her mini-education then epiphany about supporting a desal plant in HB.

Moo.

Greg Diamond

Posted August 25, 2013 at 8:55 AM

David — the insult aside, you’re changing the dubject.

Nipster — I expressed support for Sharon generally, as well as understanding as to why she would not be able to reverse the position. (That should testify to the political problem she faced in doing so.) That was not “tying myself up in knots”; it was my honest and thoughtful reaction to her being in a political predicsment.

Sometimes politics is difficult — unless one ignores enough of its complexity to make it easy, as you do. From the perspective of “everything always is and must be simple and straightforward,” I suppose that you may see a nuanced analysis as being “tied up in knots.”

David Zenger

Posted August 25, 2013 at 10:48 AM

I’m not changing the subject at all. The point is that Flory (and her ilk) are stuck in some sort of weird time warp. Ignoring what went on in Fullerton has a full time job for much of the old liberal gerontocracy.

Anyway she’s been in office for 8 months and had yet to delve into the mysteries of downtown Fullerton, poster child for messed up municipal economic intervention.

“If it’s OCTA, I presume that it’s a boondoggle, but in this case isn’t one reasonable answer that it’s across Harbor (and not far across) because that’s where it was cheap to build?”

No, in fact, the city chose to purchase land–under threat of eminent domain–on the west side of Harbor when they actually owned land on the east side already. Why? Because the city had glorious redevelopment plans for the depot side, and because they wanted the parking for the bars at night. Why else would it have fake brick on it?

“Would I be right in presuming that the proposition that Fullerton does not profit a dime from the presence of these bars is in dispute?”

It was well documented in the recent past that the downtown was costing the city over a million a year.

“Does the city get sales tax revenues from sales in the area?”

Yes, but not enough.

“Does it help create the economic infrastructure to keep more respectable restaurants in business?”

I don’t think so. I eat at the restaurants already, but don’t patronize most of the bars (sometimes they are effectively the same thing) because the bars are full of douchebags. Even the good one got rid its dress code when the owners realized they could make more money otherwise.

“Is the presence of a vibrant (and sadly vomitous) late-night party scene seen as a plus by anyone who is considering which college to attend?”

Possibly. Would you consider it a plus for your kid(s)? But is that really an issue when the local colleges are turning people away? Do you think the students they covet are the ones getting blotto every weekend?

“From your comment, I presume that there’s some study out there somewhere; I’d need to look at it to see how they came to that conclusion.”

Check out past issues of the Fullerton Observer.

“As for codes: there’s really a code against long lines?”

No more than 25 people at a time. It was a rule that was instituted as part of the council’s late-to-the-party reforms referred to in the blog post.

“Amazing! Who is violating that code, when lines get long?”

Different ones at different times. I’ll take a picture for you next time I see one. Same with the open doors. If you call the cops they will say it’s a Community Development issue. Community Development will tell you to call the cops.

“Are the bar owners supposed to go out and shoo people away? “Go to our competitors, late-arriving curs!” (Should this also apply to Farrell’s in Downtown Brea?)”

Yes, they are. And no, because the patrons of Farrell’s aren’t pissing butterscotch topping in the street.

“So, if I understand you correctly, you’re OK with cops stepping up enforcement codes but you (or at least your apparent pal nipsey) object to them enforcing penal codes against drunken vomitous urinating vandals.”

I have no problem with cops ticketing people who urinate and/or vomit in the streets. Same with drunk drivers, who are another nasty effect of the ROD.

“This would only make sense to me if you’re concerned not with solving the problem of illegality in the streets, but in shutting down businesses. It seems to me that this is refighting an old fight — and that the first step, before “clearing out the campgrounds to keep away the bears,” would be to go after the criminal acts. Otherwise, it looks like an attempt to hobble the businesses in the area, drive them away, and give someone the chance to buy property in that area cheap. That would be bad.”

It was a government intervention that created the scene in the first place. When the ROD passed landlords raised rents dramatically because they knew they could get more from bars than they could from bookstores. Quite a few businesses relocated elsewhere or closed their doors because they couldn’t afford the higher rents. Sure, go after the criminal acts, but everyone in Fullerton is going to have to pay higher taxes to support the cops to do it. Would it be worth it to you? Like I wrote, it may be insolvable at this point, but having a council member act surprised about it was more than I could let pass without comment.

OK — happy to have drawn out that detail of response. One point about your delightful “pissing butterscotch” line: if the reason for the anti-long-line ordinance is not public safety associated with the lines in and of themselves, but is instead a sneaky way of undercutting the bars’ business (which is what you imply when you say that you can distinguish between the bars and Farrell’s based on the post-patronage behavior of their customers), then the regulation itself could probably be challenged. (That wouldn’t happen in this case because they’re in different cities, but if it were the same city than it could.) If long lines aren’t the problem, don’t go after long lines. Go after those excreting butterscotch — or beer.

For all that, I think that your interpretation of Flory’s comments is uncharitable at best. One can know that a problem is big and still be surprised at how big. One can know that there’s lots of drunkenness, but be surprised by the extent and intensity of it when confronted by it in the flesh over an extended night of observation. If a politician toured the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and came away talking about how enormous the damage was, the appropriate reaction would not be to presume that they had had no idea (or little idea) of how great the damage was before seeing it personally. It would be to presume that they were affected by what they had witnessed.

Now it may be that in saying that they were just affecting being affected. Could be. But I think that you ought to have more basis for that assertion than you have here.

Just for the record…That area of the world has had hard partying crowds off and on for as long as I can remember, that’s back into the 70’s for me… Both good and bad memories, ok, maybe some fuzzy ones too… I stopped all that a long time ago

Anyone who’s been on a ride along for an evening or two will have their eyes opened and see things in a vastly different light afterward. Stats are one thing, seeing it with your own eyes is another. Seeing people bleed, cry, yell, scream and barf…it leaves a mark.

At one point in the past (early 80’s maybe) they placed porta-potty’s in a couple of the parking lots up there. It seemed to help at least in that regard. The riotous behavior however, I have no real answers, talk to ABC about compliance issues maybe, let them carry some of the water.

I’ve seen that just walking around on my own, not to mention lots of urinating on walls and women falling off their heels. I once had to pick up a woman who was so drunk she fell off of the sidewalk into the path of oncoming traffic on Harbor Blvd.

Matt, do you remember that photo we took of what looked like, on the Commonwealth sidewalk, somebody having barfed up a whole bag of pretzels? And how we unsuccessfully tried to photoshop the words “The Prezident Wuz Here?” (This was still during the Bush years.)

Next time you see people urinating on walls in the bar district, take a photo. We’ll print them and shame them. (If it’s a homeless person at some other time, don’t bother them, they have enough problems.)

If you see women falling off their heels — wait, women fall off their heels all the time, even without being drunk.

Seriously, if people want to stop this, document it. You’re walking around anyway. It’s not that hard to hold a picture phone discreetly. I’ve driven through the district during these magic hours several times in the past few months and mostly I see boisterous teeming crowds. I accept that I might see more if I walked around and kept my eyes on the walls looking for butterscotch, but I don’t go out of my way for that.

Like I wrote, it may be insolvable at this point, but having a council member act surprised about it was more than I could let pass without comment

I’d think that you might not want to ride on quite so high a horse.

If nothing can be done about the problem, then the sole point of this article is to poke fun at Flory’s statements as being clueless. However, as I’ve noted, the statements aren’t clearly clueless, but may represent exactly what Carl wrote about below when he said:

Anyone who’s been on a ride along for an evening or two will have their eyes opened and see things in a vastly different light afterward. Stats are one thing, seeing it with your own eyes is another. Seeing people bleed, cry, yell, scream and barf…it leaves a mark.

I tend to agree with him — and that makes Flory’s statements something less than embarrassing.

Now, based on her statement, she’s probably interested in solutions at this point. Are you? Or is your “solution” merely to try to capitalize on it politically?

(By the way: my suggesting that Matt photograph things explicitly wasn’t for the purpose of “documentation,” but of “shaming.”)

David Zenger

Posted August 27, 2013 at 12:21 PM

Ho hum.

David Zenger

Posted August 27, 2013 at 12:31 PM

Oh, and:

“Seriously, if people want to stop this, document it.”

Rats. More ancillary stuff.

Matt Leslie

Posted August 28, 2013 at 8:24 AM

Greg,

There is nothing wrong with pointing out that bad planning can lead to negative consequences. Perhaps by doing so, we can prevent it from happening again. Do you not agree with this statement?

Of course, I try to find solutions to problems, but I also criticize public officials when they don’t seem to be aware of the problems in the first place.

It think the article was at least as useful as the one you wrote about a San Diego public official allegedly wanking in a bathroom.

Greg Diamond

Posted August 28, 2013 at 12:10 PM

My article was about how better to headline a politically significant report. If you were also going for humor, then I guess that they were indeed on par.

If planning proposals came with big labels on them indicating that they were definitively good or bad, then like you (and unlike the Anaheim City Council of today and, you state, the Fullerton City Council of yesteryear) I would be on the side of good. Alas, they don’t. Whether something is better or worse than the available alternatives isn’t always crystal clear. If it was crystal clear and Flory (among others) ignored it, then you have a valid criticism. I doubt that she’d concede the point without some response and explanation, though.

That things turned out bad (at least in this respect, not necessarily compared to alternatives) a decade or so later may mean that the decision was bad from the start or that other decisions made since that time — regulatory and enforcement — were insufficient. You don’t really give us enough to go on as to whether that’s true, as you’re convinced that the decision came labeled “Definitively Bad” and everything since then has just been disaster rolling out on schedule. You’re not objective on this, so I’m not convinced.

David Zenger

Posted August 28, 2013 at 8:53 AM

Matt, there was nothing wrong with addressing Flory’s obtuseness, or amnesia or dementia real or pretended.This thread just got distracted by the “let’s all work together to find out what’s wrong and fix it.”

Flory’s next step will be to propose a hand-picked committee (no one who isn’t “sound”) to study the problem. If you’re clever you can put off accountability almost forever.

P.S. I doubt Flory would even make the connection between a cadre of rogue cops and the nightly battles in downtown Fullerton.

Greg Diamond

Posted August 28, 2013 at 12:11 PM

You know what — I’m HAPPY to say that Matt should be on such a commission. Critical voices are important. I’ll say the same to Flory when I next see her. (Which I haven’t, now, in months.)

David Zenger

Posted August 28, 2013 at 3:52 PM

Yes I can see it now: The Downtown Fullerton Drunk Tank Think Tank. It can spend about 18 months doing its “research.”